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Virginia First 



Dr. Lyon G. Tyler 




The Ships that Brought the Founders 

oj the Nation 

Jamestown, 1607 



Published by 

The Colonial Dames oj America 

in the 

State oj Virginia 






Fzzc, 

X<?7 



By Transfer 

NOV 14 1923 



Virginia First 



i. 

THE name First given to the territory occupied 
by the present United States was Virginia. 
It was bestowed upon the Country by Eliza- 
beth, greatest of English queens. The United States 
of America are mere words of description. They are 
not a name. The rightful and historic name of this 
great Republic is "Virginia." We must get back to 
it, if the Country's name is to have any real signifi- 
cance. 

II. 

Virginia was the First colony of Great Britain, 
and her successful settlement furnished the inspira- 
tion to English colonization everywhere. For it was 
the wise Lord Bacon who said that, "As in the arts 
and sciences the 'first invention' is of more conse- 
quence than all the improvements afterwards, so in 
kingdoms or plantations, the first foundation or plan- 
tation is of more dignity than all that followed!." 

III. 

On May 13, 1607, the pioneers brought over by 
the Sarah Constant, the Good Speed, and the Discovery 
arrived at Jamestown on James River, and Founded 
the Republic of the United States based on English 
conceptions of Justice and Liberty. The story of 
this little settlement is the story of a great nation 
expanding from small beginnings into one of more 
than 100,000,000 people inhabiting a land reaching 



VIRGINIA FIRST 



finally from ocean to ocean and abounding in riches 
and power, till when the liberties of all mankind were 
endangered the descendants of the old Jamestown set- 
tlers did in their turn cross the ocean and helped to 
save the land from which their fathers came. 



IV. 

Before any other English settlement was made on 
this continent, democracy was born at Jamestown by 
the establishment of England's free institutions — Jury 
trial, courts for the administration of justice, popular 
elections in which all the "inhabitants" took part, and 
a representative Assembly which met at Jamestown, 
July 30, 1 61 9, and digested the first laws for the new 
commonwealth. 

V. 

There at Jamestown and on James River was the 
cradle of the Union — The first church, the first block- 
house, the first wharf, the first glass factory, the first 
windmill, the first iron works, the first silk worms 
reared, the first wheat and tobacco raised, the first 
peaches grown, the first brick house, the first State 
house, and the first free school (that of Benjamin 
Syms, 1635). 

VI. 

In Virginia was the First assertion on this conti- 
nent of the indissoluble connection of representation 
and taxation. This was done as early as 1624, and the 
connection was ever afterwards insisted on, till on May 
29, 1765 it received a dramatic interpretation by Pat- 
rick Henry, rousing a country to resistance against 
the Stamp Act. 



VIRGINIA FIRST 



VII. 

Virginia Founded New England. In 1613 a Vir- 
ginia Governor, Sir Thomas Gates, drove the French 
away from Maine and Nova Scotia and saved to Eng- 
lish colonization the shores of Massachusetts and 
Connecticut. In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers were in- 
spired to go to North America by the successful settle- 
ment at Jamestown. They sailed under a patent given 
them by the Virginia Company of London, and it was 
only the accident of a storm that caused them to settle 
outside of the limits of the territory of the London 
Company, though still in Virginia. The Mayflower 
compact, under which the 41 emigrants united them- 
selves at Cape Codd followed pretty nearly the terms 
of the original Virginia Company's patent. 

In 1622 the people at Plymouth were saved from 
starvation by the opportune arrival of two ships from 
Jamestown, which divided their provisions with them. 
Without this help the Plymouth settlement would have 
been abandoned. 

The 41 Pilgrim Fathers established an aristocracy 
at Plymouth, for they constituted an exclusive body 
and only cautiously admitted any new comers to part- 
nership with them in the Government. 

Citizenship at Plymouth and in all New England 
was a matter of special selection in the case of each 
individual, but in Virginia the suffrage was tested by 
a general principle. Thus in Virginia the House of 
Burgesses, which was the great controlling body, rested 
for more than a hundred years upon universal suffrage 
(1619-1736). There was a splendid and spectacular 
body of aristocrats in Virginia, but they had nothing 
like the power and prestige of the New England 
preachers and magistrates. 



VIRGINIA FIRST 



VIII. 

Virginia led in all the measures that established 
the independence of the United States. Beginning 
with the French and Indian War, out of which sprang 
the taxation measures that subsequently provoked the 
American Revolution, Virginia under Washington, 
struck the first blow against the French, and Virginian 
blood was the first American blood to flow in that 
war. Then, when, after the war, the British Parlia- 
ment proposed to tax America by the Stamp Act, it 
was the Colony of Virginia that rang "the alarm bell" 
and rallied all the other colonies against the measure 
by the celebrated resolutions of Patrick Henry, May 
29, 1765, which brought about its repeal. 

Later when the British Parliament revived its 
policy of taxation in 1767 by the Revenue Act, though 
circumstances made the occasion for the first move- 
ments elsewhere, it was always Virginia that by some 
resolute and determined action of leadership solved 
the crisis that arose. 

There were four of these crises: 

(1) The first occurred when Massachusetts, by 
her protest, in 1768, against the Revenue Act, stirred 
up Parliament to demand that her patriot leaders be 
sent to England for trial. Massachusetts was left 
quite alone and she remained quiescent. Virginia 
stepped to the front and by her ringing resolu- 
tions of May 16, 1769, aroused the whole continent 
to resistance, which forced Parliament to compromise, 
leave the Massachusetts men alone, and repeal all the 
taxes except a small one on tea. After the Assembly, 
"The Brave Virginians" was the common toast 
throughout New England. 

(2) The next crisis occurred in 1772. In that 
year the occasion for action occurred in the smallest 
of the colonies, Rhode Island, by an attack of some 



VIRGINIA FIRST 



unauthorized persons on the sloop Gaspee, which was 
engaged in suppressing smuggling. The King imitated 
Parliament by trying to renew the policy of transport- 
ing Americans to England for trial, but Virginia 
caused the King and his Counsellors to desist from 
their purpose by her system of inter-colonial commit- 
tees, which brought about a real continental union of 
the colonies for the first time. 

(3) The third crisis occurred in 1774, when a 
mob of disguised persons threw the tea overboard in 
Boston harbor. Though Boston did not authorize this 
proceeding, Parliament held her responsible and shut 
up her port. Virginia thought this unjust, and was the 
first colony to declare her sympathy with Boston, and 
the first, in any representative character for an entire 
colony, to call for a Congress of all the colonies. 

And to that Congress which met September 5, 
1774, she furnished the first president, Peyton Ran- 
dolph, and the greatest orators, Patrick Henry and 
Richard Henry Lee. 

The remedy proposed by this Congress was a plan 
of non-intercourse already adopted in Virginia, to be 
enforced by committees appointed in every county, 
city and town in America. 

(4) The fourth crisis began in 1775 with the 
laws passed by the British Parliament to cut off the 
trade of the colonies, intended as retaliatory to the 
American non-intercourse. This led to hostilities, and 
for a year, during which time the war was waged in 
New England, the colonists held the attitude of con- 
fessed rebels, fighting their sovereign and yet profess- 
ing allegiance to him. When the war was transferred 
to the South with the burning of Norfolk and the 
battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, this attitude became 
intolerable to the Southerners, and they sought for a 
solution of the difficulty in Independence. 



8 VIRGINIA FIRST 

While Boston was professing through her town 
meeting her willingness "to wait, most patiently to 
wait" for Congress to act, and the Assembly of the 
Province deferred action till the towns were heard 
from, it was North Carolina, largely settled by Vir- 
ginians, that on April 12, 1776, instructed her delegates 
in Congress to concur with the delegates from the 
other Colonies in declaring independence, and it was 
Virginia that on May 15, 1776, commanded her dele- 
gates to propose independence. The first explicit and 
direct instructions for independence anywhere in the 
United States were given by Cumberland County, in 
Virginia, April 22, 1776. Unlike the tumultuary, un- 
authorized, and accidental nature of the leading revo- 
lutionary incidents in New England, such as the Boston 
Tea Party and the Battle of Lexington, the proceed- 
ings in Virginia were always the authoritative and 
official acts of the Colony. 

All the world should know that it was Richard 
Henry Lee, a Virginian, who drew the resolutions for 
independence adopted by Congress July 2, 1776, and 
that it was Thomas Jefferson, a Virginian, who wrote 
"the Declaration of Independence" adopted July 4, 
1776, a paper styled by a well known New England 
writer as "the most commanding and most pathetic 
utterance in any age of national grievances and na- 
tional purposes." 

IX. 

During the war that ensued Virginia contributed 
to the war what all must allow was the soul of the 
war — the immortal George Washington, whose im- 
mense moral personality accomplished more in bring- 
ing success than all the money employed and all the 
armies placed in the field ; and the war had its ending 



VIRGINIA FIRST 



at Yorktown, only a few miles from the original settle- 
ment at Jamestown. The Father of this great Repub- 
lic was a Virginian. 

X. 

Virginia led in the work of organizing the Gov- 
ernment of the United States. She called the An- 
napolis Convention in 1786, and furnished to ^the 
Federal Convention at Philadelphia which met, as the 
result of her action, its chief constructor — James 
Madison — who has been aptly described as Father of 
the Constitution. She furnished the two greatest rival 
interpreters of its powers, Thomas Jefferson and John 
Marshall, and gave the Union its first President, 
George Washington. 

XL 

Virginia, through her explorers, generals and 
presidents, made the Union a continental power. 

It was Patrick Henry and George Rogers Clark 
who effected the conquest of the Northwest Terri- 
tory, which eventually added five great States to the 
Union. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark made 
the first thorough exploration of the West. And Lou- 
isiana, Florida and Texas were added to the Union 
by Virginia Presidents — Jefferson, Monroe, and Tyler. 
Nor can it be forgotten that all the West was the 
result of the annexation of Texas by Tyler, in- 
directly leading to the Mexican War, whose success 
was assured by two Virginia generals — Zachary Tay- 
lor and Winfield Scott. 

Had the New England influences, which were op- 
posed to the Annexation policy, dominated, the United 
States to-day, if it existed at all, would be confined 
to a narrow slip along the Atlantic shore. 



IO VIRGINIA FIRST 

XII. 

A Virginia President, James Monroe, gave to the 
world over his name the Monroe Doctrine, which has 
regulated, to the present day, the relations of America 
to the nations of Europe and the rest of mankind. 
"America for Americans," he said in substance. 

XIII. 

Virginians created those ideals for which the Re- 
public of the United States stands to-day — democracy, 
religious freedom, and education. 

Democracy: Not only did Virginia have the first 
legislative Assembly, which rested for more than a 
hundred years on universal 'suffrage, she was the 
headquarters, after the American Revolution, of the 
great Democratic-Republican party, under the leader- 
ship of Thomas Jefferson. This party was the cham- 
pion of the popular idea against the aristocratic no- 
tions of the Federalists, who had their headquarters in 
New England. By completely destroying the Feder- 
alist party Virginia sowed the seeds of democracy 
throughout the United States, and the world. All 
political parties in the United States since that time 
have the same creed as to the equality of the citizen. 
Thomas Jefferson is incomparably the greatest living 
influence in America. He is, in fact, the Founder of 
Americanism, as we understand it. 

Through an act, of which the same great man was 
the author, Virginia was the first State in the world 
to impose a penalty for engaging in the slave trade 
(1778), and in the Federal Convention in 1787 her 
delegates bitterly opposed the provision in the Consti- 
tution supported by the Puritan delegates from New 
England, permitting the slave trade for twenty years. 
New England men were great shippers of slaves. 



VIRGINIA FIRST II 

Religious Freedom- After the same manner Vir- 
ginia sowed the seeds of religious freedom. All New 
England, except Rhode Island, in Colonial days, was 
principled against religious liberty. Even after the 
American Revolution the preachers and a group of 
laymen in each community grasped all power and the 
people were forced into submission. In 1793 only 
one in twenty of the people in Connecticut exercised 
the right of suffrage. Even in Rhode Island there 
were, till a late date, laws against Roman Catholics 
voting or holding office, and it took Dorr's Rebellion 
in 1842 to break up the restrictions on the ballot 
handed down from Colonial days. 

The persecuting spirit was not absent in Virginia, 
but it was never so severe or relentless as in New 
England. And for many years before the American 
Revolution there was no religious qualifications for 
voting or holding office. 

The Declaration of Rights of Virginia, drawn 
by George Mason in 1776, and imitated by all the 
other States, placed the principle of religious freedom, 
for the first time, upon a truly philosophic basis. Vir- 
ginia was then the First State in the world to proclaim 
absolute equality and freedom of religion to the people 
of all faiths — Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, etc. 
The principle enunciated by Mason was enacted into 
law by Thomas Jefferson, whose bill for Religious 
Freedom in 1785 invested conscience with the wings 
of heaven. 

Education: Finally, it was a Virginian, Thomas 
Jefferson, that furnished the ideals of popular educa- 
tion. The system of schools as they existed in Massa- 
chusetts in Colonial days did not remotely resemble the 
present ideal. As a system they were under no central 
authority, were not free to the scholar who had to pay 
for tuition, and were primarily directed to the mainte- 



12 VIRGINIA FIRST 

nance and upholding of the Congregational Church. 
None but members of that Church could be teachers 
in Massachusetts. In practice, the towns neglected 
their responsibilities "shamelessly," and a large per- 
centage of the people could neither read nor write. 

Virginia did not go far in its educational system, 
but in its ancient laws for educating poor children, 
and establishing and financing William and Mary Col- 
lege, the colony clearly recognized education as a pub- 
lic function. As to the general supply of education, 
however, the Colony had by far the best libraries and 
teachers and, according to Mr. Jefferson, the mass of 
education, accomplished through tutors and private 
schools, "placed her among the foremost of her sister 
States," at the time of the Revolution. But it was the 
great bill of Thomas Jefferson in 1779, correlating the 
different graduations of schools — beginning with the 
primary schools and ending with the University, that 
furnished the real ideal on which the public school 
system of the United States rests to-day. 

XIV. 

Before 1861 the Union consisted practically of two 
nations separated by Mason and Dixon's line, differ- 
ing in habits of thought, customs, and largely in insti- 
tutions. It was only the pressure of British taxation 
that brought these two nations together, and immedi- 
ately after the peace in 1783 the separative forces be- 
gan to exert themselves. They were first sharply 
manifested in New England, where plans of secession 
were discussed as early as 1800. So far did this spirit 
proceed that in 181 2- 181 4 the New England States 
professed the extreme doctrine of States rights, and 
did all they could to paralyze the arm of the Federal 
Government during the course of a war with the 



VIRGINIA FIRST 13 

greatest power in Europe. As late as 1844 the Massa- 
chusetts Legislature, after declaring that "uniting an 
independent foreign state" (like Texas) "with the 
United States was riot among the powers delegated to 
the General Government," stated its resolve to be "to 
submit to undelegated powers in no body of men on 
earth," and in 1845 ft announced the doctrine of nulli- 
fication by declaring that the admission of Texa^ 
"would have no binding force whatever on the people 
of Massachusetts." 

But by this time the great increase in the wealth 
and population of the North, chiefly due to the foreign 
immigration, caused New England to abandon the 
separative policy and substitute that of nationality to 
be preserved by force. The South now being the 
weaker section was compelled into the opposite policy, 
and finally, obeying the dictates of its economic and 
social forces, seceded from the Union and organized a 
separate government. 

Virginia, which had a sentimental attachment to 
the Union, attempted to preserve it by the Peace Con- 
ference, but finding that impossible, and placed in a 
dilemma of fighting the northern Union or fighting 
the Southern Confederacy, she allied herself with the 
latter, of which she was really an integral part. In 
the light of the doctrine of self determination, now 
so generally admitted, it appears one of the most 
astonishing things in history that eight millions of 
people, occupying a territory half the size of Europe, 
with a thoroughly organized government, and capable 
of fighting one of the greatest wars on record, were 
not permitted to set up for themselves. 

By the results of the war, one of the two nations 
of the old Union was wiped out and incorporated 
into the other. But Virginia was the capital of the 
Southern Confederacy and the battlefield of the war, 



14 VIRGINIA FIRST 

and the veterans of Virginia and the South have lived 
to see the principle of self government and self de- 
termination for which they fought accepted by the 
world at large. 

In the war for Southern Independence, as in the 
American Revolution, Virginia furnished the Ideal 
Man. In one war it was George Washington, and in 
the other it was Robert E. Lee. Both these great men 
were distinguished by the union of a handsome person 
with a supremely majestic soul, brave, refined, digni- 
fied and clean. They were, indeed, kingly men. 

XV. 

The contributions of Virginia to science should 
not be passed by in this summary of her priorities. 
Among the creators of an epoch the following may 
be mentioned particularly. James Rumsey first dem- 
onstrated in her waters in 1786 the possibilities of 
steam as applied to a river boat. Cyrus Hall McCor- 
mick revolutionized agriculture throughout the world 
by his invention of the reaper. Matthew Fontaine 
Maury about the same time did the same thing for 
ocean navigation. He furnished the plans for the lay- 
ing of the Atlantic Cable, and was the father of the 
modern science of torpedo and mine laying. In recent 
days Walter Reed, of Gloucester County, was fore- 
most in discovering the cause of yellow fever and 
rendering that dread disease innocuous. 

During the war for Southern Independence, it 
was the ironclad Virginia (or JMerrimac), constructed 
by two master engineers, John L. Porter, of Ports- 
mouth, Va., and John Mercer Brooke, of Lexington, 
Va., that showed in an epoch making battle fought in 
Hampton Roads, March 8, 1862, with the Federal 
wooden battleships, the superiority of iron ships over 



VIRGINIA FIRST 15 



wooden ones, no matter how gallantly manned and 
bravely fought. 

Then and there Virginia genius and invention 
Founded the present navies of the world. 

The Monitor, which engaged the Virginia the next 
day (March 9, 1862), had no share in this glory. Naval 
warfare would have been revolutionized if it had 
never showed up. The battle of the ninth is only in- 
teresting as it affords a test of the prowess of the two 
vessels. The Monitor was driven from the field, and 
ever after avoided conflict with the Virginia, though 
repeatedly challenged in Hampton Roads to a new 
trial of strength. 



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